By Bipin Dani
MUMBAI, India (TheSportsNEXT) October 31, 2012: The reduction of lunch interval from 40 minutes to 30 minutes and increased tea break from 20 minutes to 30 minutes is likely to be adequate for the players and match officials, former ICC elite panel umpire, Daryl Harper told TheSportsNEXT.com on Wednesday.
Speaking exclusively over telephone from Perth, where he has been officiating as a match-referee for Cricket Australia in a second XI four day match, Daryl Harper said, "The reduced luncheon interval is generally considered adequate for participants in a match to consume a substantial meal and to be ready to resume the action. I would anticipate that after players have experienced the option of two thirty minute intervals, they will favour this arrangement and it will become the norm".
The ICC has announced that in the Test matches, the host team, with the consent of the other side, can apply to the ICC for an approval for both intervals (lunch and tea) of 30 minutes each.
"This is the current playing condition in Australia for Sheffield Shield cricket and has proven to be very popular with my umpiring colleagues. It was also in use last season. The traditional twenty minute tea interval has long been considered to be too much of a rush with very limited time to rest and recuperate, remembering that the umpires are the last to leave the playing arena and the first to return after the break", the former ICC umpire added.
"The length of the interval remains constant, even if a bowler completes his over several minutes after the scheduled break in play. The restart of play is automatically adjusted to ensure that the length of the interval is not compromised".
"Many seasons ago, the resumption time was not changed so a tea break could be reduced to less than twenty minutes; a situation that was inconvenient", Harper signed off.
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